Techno-economic heliostat field optimization: Comparative analysis of different layouts

This paper presents an analysis of the effect of the land cost on the size and shape of the solar field. A parametric study has been performed, where the effect of the land cost is considered through the introduction of a parameter k, representing the ratio between the land and heliostats surface cost. Three different field layouts and two different geographical sites have been taken into consideration. The selected field layouts have been studied for several k-values within a relevant range. Results show that introducing a cost ratio k different from 0 has a strong influence on the shape of the resulting fields, significantly compressing the heliostats fields also for low land costs. For example, for k=0.02, the area is reduced, with respect to k=0, from 28% to 49%, following the considered cases; on the same time, the yearly collection efficiency is reduced by only about 1% in all cases.